Slides for automatic pistols have included sides of varying thicknesses to accomplish desired appearances and for structural or other reasons. Automatic pistols must have their slides manually retracted to chamber the first cartridge to be fired; and it is also necessary to manually retract the slide to unload a chambered cartridge. Pistol slides are therefore customarily equipped with grasping grooves for facilitating manual retraction.
The sides of some pistol slides have included cutout or notched areas for effecting the proper location of the slide to the barrel during firing of the cartridge, and unlocking of these parts during recoil to allow cycling of the slide to expend spent cartridge cases and to effect reloading. Reciprocating slides have included techniques for accepting pivoting locking mechanisms which alternately lock and unlock the barrel slide. Such mechanisms for locking and unlocking the barrel and slide have included recesses formed in the interior of the slide which recesses inherently weakened the structure of the slide.
Slide previously used or proposed which include these locking recesses at thin sections of the slide have not been found to be satisfactory for extended and demanding use.